


Reflected Emotion

by MarsDragon



Category: Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 06:04:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarsDragon/pseuds/MarsDragon
Summary: "You know how Spheres work, right?"





	Reflected Emotion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



Yuna had just stepped into the Celsius' bridge when Shinra called out to her. "Hey. I think I figured out why you started dancing back there."

"Really?" She made her way over to his station and peered at the incomprehensible mess of numbers and symbols on his screen. "Why, then?"

"And how do we stop it from happening again?" Paine broke in from behind them. 

"One at a time," Shinra said. "First, you know how spheres work, right?"

"Spheres are water infused with pyreflies that take on various abilities according to how they were made. Um...then the pyreflies take care of the rest." Yuna hoped he wouldn't ask for details. She'd never been concerned with it. As long as the sphere worked, she had bigger things to worry about.

"More or less. And pyreflies are just bits of life that return to the Earth and continue the cycle. So they're temporarily trapped in spheres, and they can remember the emotions the sphere was made with. That's how we turn them into dresspheres." 

"Huh?" He'd lost her already. "We create dresspheres...from the emotions in the original sphere?"

"Yeah." Shinra kept tapping at his console. "Here, look. The emotions in the sphere are amplified, and you layer your own emotions over them to create the clothing and abilities that go with that feeling. I add some magic to standardize it so you're not getting different things from each sphere."

Yuna couldn't figure out what anything on Shinra's screen meant but she didn't want to look like an idiot in front of him and Paine, so she nodded like it made perfect sense. 

But the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. The sphere they'd found in Besaid, when they'd watched it, had felt gentle and warm. It had reminded Yuna of home, and how much she had wanted to protect it from Sin, and how it had helped her in the past two years. And then it had turned into a dressphere that gave magic to heal and protect. Of course. And the sphere from Mt. Gagazet had felt charged and anticipatory, like the feeling of black magic before it went off, and Tobli's sphere had felt adventurous and exploratory...

She wondered what kind of dressphere they'd have gotten out of the recordings she'd made on her Pilgrimage. Then she decided she didn't want to know.

"Anyway," Shinra said, "if your emotions are too much in sync with the original sphere's emotions, you'll get overtaken by them. And the dressphere will take on a life of its own."

"Too much in sync? But the Songstress sphere-" _I wasn't in sync with it_ was what Yuna wanted to say. She had been angry, nervous, excited, and triumphant in turns...which was probably what putting on a performance was like. She'd only been able to stop when the buoyant feeling of success had faded into real fear that she wouldn't be able to stop dancing, ever. "...so the dancing...that's what the original sphere maker would've felt like doing?"

"Probably. Maybe. I dunno."

"Thought you invented all of this," Paine interjected again. She'd come over from her usual place and was glaring at the back of Shinra's head, arms crossed.

"I'm just a kid." 

Yuna wondered what kind of person the maker of the original sphere had been like. She hadn't seen it; Rikku had found the sphere and Shinra transformed it before she had joined the Gullwings. But Yuna could feel it was another woman, someone who loved performing, someone passionate and determined, someone who had something she wanted to do, no matter what... What would she think of Yuna wearing a vision of her clothes, singing echoes of her songs?

"Hmph. The important thing is, how do we keep it from happening again? It was after the battle this time. What if one of us gets taken over while we're fighting a fiend?" Paine's fingers were digging into her arm, Yuna noticed. But it felt too presumptuous to put a hand on her shoulder, so Yuna looked away instead. 

Shinra shrugged. He hadn't glanced at them once during the entire conversation. "Just keep a good grasp of what's you and what's the sphere. You shouldn't have any problems."

"Hi, question! If someone deliberately tries to sync with the sphere, can they turn into someone else?" Rikku jumped in - pushing Yuna aside in the process. 

Yuna steadied herself and said, "That's what that Leblanc woman did, right? She synced with the sphere and my garment grid...to turn into me." It was still a little creepy.

"Yuna's got it. It's possible, but it's probably dangerous. You'd have to know how to come back."

"So if someone else, someone not YRP, used a dressphere, they'd get a new dress or one of ours?" Rikku asked.

"What are you getting at?" Paine looked suspicious.

"What I'm saying is... Buddy! How'd you like to dance like Yuna?!" 

"What?" Yuna gasped. 

"I don't know what you're planning, Rikku, but leave me out of this," Buddy called from the navigator’s seat. "I have enough to worry about keeping this thing on the right track."

"Dance like Yuna? Dance with Yuna? I do it! I do it no problem!" Brother jumped up and out of his seat, landing more or less on his feet. He struck a pose. "Give sphere to Brother!"

Paine's flat "...no" came out at the same time as Rikku's torrent of Al-Bhed. Try as she might, Yuna couldn't catch a word. She was pretty sure what the meaning was, though.

Brother replied with just as much rapid-fire Al-Bhed, which made Rikku stick her tongue out at him. They both glared at each other. 

Yuna turned back to Shinra. "So...what would happen if Brother used a dressphere? Theoretically."

"Same as you, probably. He'd get clothes based on what he felt matched the emotions and abilities of the sphere." Shinra paused. "We should do it. I need more data than just the three of you."

Brother's whoop of triumph covered up Paine's sigh and Rikku's noise of irritation. "Okay, fine," Rikku said, stomping over to Brother. "And as I'm a good little sister, I will happily lend my beloved older brother my garment grid if he wants it so bad. Here!"

"It shouldn't matter which one we use-" Yuna started, but Rikku cut her off with, "Nope nope, good little sister here. Take it already!"

Brother glared at Rikku, but took her grid and started poking at it. "Which do I use? How do I- FRUY!" The shout of Al-Behd came right as the garment grid activated the dressphere, and Brother disappeared in a blaze of light. 

Yuna ran over, worried, only to be checked by Paine's arm. "Wait. He's fine." 

She was proven right a few seconds later, when the shimmering light faded and left Brother sprawled out on the floor, heels above his head and eyes rolling. The entire bridge stared at him - or more correctly, what he was now wearing.

A gigantic, broad-brimmed hat, made out of some sort of rough cloth, a solid-looking bright blue coat, and thick black makeup smeared over his eyes. But the biggest, most noticeable part were his new pants. They ballooned. Striped bright white and blue, they puffed out in a huge swell over his legs before being gathered at the ankles, so big it was hard to see his face past them. A wooden staff lay fallen on the floor.

"Were you thinking of selling these to the general populace, Shina?" Paine asked.

"In the future, maybe."

"Don't." With that, Paine turned and left the bridge.

"Too many crimes against fashion," Rikku said. 

Yuna agreed.


End file.
